Fated Journey II : The Shadowfell

All you need is a little patience...

The mercs foolishly rush into the temple. The doors all shut and a clicking sound starts counting down. Anya pulls a lever in the center of the large room, the only thing in the room. After doing this a couple times and no doors opening, Oengus Man wisely tells the team to do nothing. The far door opens up. A trip down a short hallway leads to a huge room with monsters.

EWWW…. – Two Otyughs and two Carrion Crawlers attack the mercs. The battle is hard fought against the disgusting filth, but the ragtag group of mercenaries overcomes the predators.

The group climb a winding stairwell and come upon a long dark hallway. A single torch at the end gives light to a single guard. The mercs clumsily and noisily kill the alert guard. Entering the room behind the guarded door, the group is ambushed by an elvish woman and some thugs.

Enemy Revealed – The mercs are not that surprised to find themselves ambushed, as they did create a lot of noise killing the guard outside. After a difficult strife, the mercs slay all their foes.

A portal in the room takes them to linked portal inside the Synergy Temple’s Treasure Vault. Sentinels in the room come to life to stop the thieves.

Sentinels – Four sentinels awaken and attack the intruders. The mercenaries quickly subdue the enemies.

Picking up the arcaned sealed chest they were after, not to mention a lot of other treasure, the mercs teleport back to the Undercity. They head back to Gloomwrought and then the Black Griffon Inn ending their mission…

Undead and Finding the Temple Door's Guardian

Resting at an ancient tavern in the Undercity, the Crimson Tide Mercenaries start navigating the labyrinth of crumbled buildings and roads to find the temple they seek. The vampire gracefully glides across the many scattered rooftops, while the paladin and fighter sprint along the broken streets. The ardent and seeker hear undead nearby and stealthily investigate the noise, splitting the party up. The kalashtar and kobold happen upon a group of skeletons and throw a sunrod into the undead’s area, causing the shuffling filth to search for them. Meanwhile, the other three mercs get a sense that they should slow down and so they look around and see the sunrod’s light. They know it is their allies’ sunrod and so they run back to assist.

Walking Undead? – Oengus Man surprises a boneshard skeleton with a nasty flail attack, while Snork fires away with his magical sling at a skeleton. Blazing skeletons throw small fireballs at the ardent and seeker setting them ablaze. A wight comes out of a nearby building and screams wretchedly. Surrounded by the undead, things look grim for Oengus and Snork, but the other three mercs finally appear to help. Sabu sprints up and flings a throwing hammer at one of the blazing skeletons. The ardent is surrounded by undead and cunningly switches spots with the paladin’s. With the aid of their compatriots, Snork and Oengus beat down the undead.

After the undead are slain, the mercs continue searching for the lost temple in the Undercity. Through tenacious tracking and excellent perception, they find the temple. Oengus, Snork, Sabu, and the Nameless proceed cautiously. Anya springs past them and immediately tries opening the double doors, but instead the looped handles pull outwards and release a huge pool of bog water from a hidden crevice above the doorway. The cascading bog water, from the Skins above, coalesces into a monstrosity of rank water and moss.

Golem…Golem – The Bog Golem strikes first, unleashing a torrent of bog water at the mercenaries. The mercs fight back, striking hard and fast. The monstrous fiend precedes to rampage through the group, pounding them all with it’s huge fists. The battle takes the party to it’s limits, but they finally manage to vanquish the watery foe, turning it into a pool of bog water.

Before the mercs can check their surroundings or heal up, Anya hurriedly enters the temple. The group chases after her, but the large cavernous room locks them inside…

Shrewd Diplomacy and a Trial by Combat

The mercenaries trek back to the Black Griffon Inn to show Carver and Dagger the encrypted note found on the slain bladeling assassin. They reach the inn and see a flurry of activity within and around it. Inside they see the inn’s employees furiously scrubbing out the putrid innards and filthy blood of it’s mutilated patrons. Dagger is also inside negotiating with the innkeeper. Outside the inn, laborers are putting the hacked up bodies into wagons and carts to carry away. The Deathless Watch is present in force, too. The party finds Carver outside the inn and approach him. He informs them that the Black Griffon Inn is one of the few safehouses for the Crimson Tide here in the Shadowfell and the mercs need to control their aggression inside such an establishment. Deathless Watch members at that point, walk up to the group.

Bluffing the Law – The Vampire, Vryloka, Dragonborn, and Kobold are interrogated by the Deathless Watch. The Crimson Tide hired adventurers use all manners of dialogue to convince the Deathless Watch members that the carnage was not entirely their fault. While they do persuade the Deathless Watch that the brawl just got outta hand, Anya feels these Watch are putting a little too much attention into this and maybe someone behind the scenes is trying to get the Crimson Tide to stop meddling. The mercs are relieved that they are not going to the Hanging Wall, but will have to have a Trial by Combat to resolve any grievances.

The mercs approach a raised stage in town with a slew of spectators jeering and cheering them. In the middle of the stage is a strange mechanical device and behind that is there adversaries. The foes are a mixture of relatives or allies of the group’s recent victims: a dwarven samurai whose brother was slain in the bar brawl, two goatmen whose clansman was one of the first cut down by the Nameless at the inn, and the ogre butcher’s own younger brother.

A Bloody Good Show – The combat starts off very well for the party, as the seeker slings some magic towards one of the goatmen and the paladin both bloodies that same goatman and dazes the ogre. Anya flys into battle, vanquishing the nearly deceased goatman. The surviving goatman charges at the ardent, hitting the kalashtar strongly, and pushing him off the stage. The crowd wants more blood and flings the ardent back up to the stage with some more bruises. The dwarf samurai slices at the vampire and the ogre brings down his greatclub on the dragonborn. The mechanical device in the center of the stage puffs out some smoke, turns towards the vampire and paladin, and spews a swath of fire at them. Anya dodges the flames, but the dragonborn falls down unconscious. Content Not Found: oengus switches places with the goatman, heals the paladin, and has the Nameless and him harshly hew down the horned humaniod. Snork fires off another magically sling volley, breaking the dwarf’s jaw. Sabu stands back up and swings away at the ogre and crippling his enemies with fear. The vampire is finally able to slay the dwarf and the vryloka slayer viciously charges at the ogre. The ogre is slain and his bodies falls off the stage onto part of the crowd.

The group is now free to go back to the Inn and rest until morning. Waking up refreshed, but with some kind of despair from being in the Shadowfell, the party orders breakfast and tells Carver about the encrypted note. With the shade’s help, the mercs figure out the puzzle boxes message and head out to the Temple District to find the Undercity Entrance. In the Temple District, Oengus Man talks to a gnome clergyman of the Raven Queen, who leads them to his temple. Confusingly, that’s all the ardent does. The Nameless approaches a female vryloka who points them to the temple of Pelor to find the Undercity Entrance, but is annoyed with the fighter’s lame lines and walks away. Hustling to the temple of Pelor, the party finds it is merely a small house converted into a church. The kalashtar goes into a nearby tannery, buys some cheap leather cuffs, and coerces the half orc woman behind the counter to confer that the Undercity Entrance is near the Pelor church. Anya uses her vampire grace to nimbly climb a house and spots the Undercity Entrance close by. The mercenaries journey deep down into the Undercity and boldly guide themselves through it’s crumpled, deteriorated buildings and streets. Sabu, the Blackguard Dragonborn Paladin, happens upon a well known inn from ages past. The party explores the inn and finds someone was recently here and left notes detailing a meeting place deeper into the Undercity…

Death Around Every Corner...

After a restful night at the Black Griffon Inn, the three mercernaries head downstairs to have a late lunch. Dagger waves them over to her table and they notice Carver sitting at an adjacent table with a large dragonborn and a vampire. Introductions are made with tension in the air as the three mercs are now joined by Sabu and Anya. Carver unrolls a map of the city and shows them a temple that was recently attacked by unknown assailants. He explains that they are to meet with a contact in the Shambles that will secretly escort them into the temple to retrieve an artifact. Dagger and Carver leave, while the mercs drink and eat. The Nameless heads to the bar, where a drunk man bumps into and spills his ale all over a goatfolk. Oengus proceeds to promote thoughts of anger into the minds of certain patrons, which leads the goatfolk to toss the drunk man across the room and onto the party’s table. A bar fight breaks out with someone mistakenly punching the fighter, who violently swings out with his blade, turning the fistfights into an all out murderous conflict.

Bringing A Sword To A Fistfight – The Nameless goes into full bloodlust, letting his blade hack off limbs left and right. The paladin and vampire enter the fray with savage fury. The ardent telepathically makes a couple patrons run for their lives, but another has murder on his mind. Snork sneaks around the big folk and finds the inn’s lockbox and proceeds to open it’s treasures. The unnecessary bloodshed eventually ends with a lot of dead drunks and the mercs exiting the inn to find their contact.

Going to the alleyway in the Shambles that Carver told them to go to, the party finds a hooded assailant repeatedly stabbing their contact. A chase ensues with the group finally catching up to him as he enters a butcher’s shop. Entering boldly, the mercs are shocked that the “butcher” is an ogre with murder in it’s eyes.

The Butcher – Sabu, Anya, Oengus, Snork, and the Nameless all fight for their lives as the butcher swings a meathook and cleaver wildly at them. The hooded assailant is revealed to be a bladeling with two more of his kind helping him attack the party. The battle wears on with the mercs balancing precariously towards life and death, but eventually they slay their foes.

The party finds 2000 gold and search throught the corpses. The hooded bladelings robe has a cryptic letter written in code. Carver might be able to crack it…

Unsavory mercenaries are brought together to search for an Artifact...

Three ruthless mercenaries are brought onboard a Crimson Tide ship at the port of Heimdal. Dagger and Despair are there as well and explain that the Crimson Tide leader brought you here to go to the Shadowfell and retrieve an Artifact there. The Nameless rests on the steps leading to the captain’s chamber, while Oengus leans against the center mast. Snork gazes out over the ocean. As the Nameless drifts off into dreams of slaughter, Oengus Man invades his dreams and cooly manipulates the Vryloka’s bloody dream. After that, Oengus probes Snork’s thoughts. The three mercs regard each other rather coldly. Eventually the ship lands on Masa Island.

Nameless proceeds to his room near the docks, while Snork and Oengus go to the tavern. Oengus asks the kobold to bother a Crimson Tide member, so that the Ardent can come in smoothly and ask the man what they can expect going to the portal that leads to the Shadowfell. The man’s thoughts turn to fear, the kalastar senses, while he explains the local wildlife have been warped by the shadow’s taint. With some vague insight into tomorrow’s journey, Oengus decides to retire to his room. Snork spends the rest of the night in the back alleys hunting for rats. Morning comes and the mercs along with Dagger meet with their Shade guide, Carver.

Tainted Meat – Walking throught the jungle, the group is attacked by a variety of shadow tainted beasts. The Crimson Tide lackeys fall victim to the animals attacks. This being the first fight with each other the three mercs are not in sync, but still manage to slay the shadowy beasts.

Carver and Dagger take point and lead the mercs to the portal deeper in the jungle. Finally coming to the portal, the shade and warforged proceed through, followed by the mercs. Now in the Shadowfell, the group can already feel the difference between the two planes. It is foreboding and death hangs thick in the air. A Dark One waits by a barge to take them across the Skins. Everyone gets on and the dark one ferries them towards the City Gates.

Ferry Bad – Travelling across the bog, the mercs are set upon by undead. The ghastly creatures swarm onto the barge. The kobold seeker has a tough time firing away at them with his elemental magic. The kalashtar ardent manages to pull the undead close to him and then teleports himself and The Nameless, switching their positions. The vryloka slayer is lost in his bloodlust as he swings madly at the skeletons with his fullblade. With help from Dagger and Carver, the mercs bring down all the undead.

The dark one continues to ferry them across the Skins and they all pass under the City Walls and dock at the harbor. A carriage awaits to take them to Black Griffon Inn…